Sleep, oh, sleep, / sleep, time,
you’re a child, / always young,
so much older / than the world,
a world that has come / from another world,
we don’t know / how it has begun.

Sleep, oh, sleep, / sleep, time,
of a being / so profound
that even confuses / high and low,
the air and the earth / and the sea.
Sleep, time, / in this song
that is passing / through the throat
growing bigger / ah ah ah ah ah
sailing on the sea, singing lullabies.

Ah ah ah ah ah,
oh, wake up, / for the day
reawakens / every word
turned to an isle / of the senses
we have lived, / we are living,
and all those yet to come
meant to grow / and to die
between being and non-being.

“Oh, wake up
all of you who sleep
lullabying the pain
of vile silences,
come to set on fire
the stars and our songs,
pebbles of the sea,
the world as well our hearts.”

Oh, wake up,
for the word is transformed
into sowing, into harvest
of the land, of the sea,
it’s the isles / ah ah ah ah ah
sailing on the sea, and awakening
oh, wake up!

• Dating to circa 1400 BCE, a hymn to Nikkal, a goddess of orchards, is now the oldest surviving substantially complete notated work of notated music in the world (preceding by almost 1.5 millennia the oldest extant complete notated song dating to ca. 200 BCE – 100 CE, the Seikilos Epitaph, which is performed in our previous work, Periplus, sung by Hélia Correia). The hymn is among a collection of 36 Hurrian songs inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets, excavated from Ugarit, a port city in northern Syria, which was burned to the ground circa 1190 BCE by the Sea Peoples, a purported seafaring coalition of invaders, originating from western Asia Minor and southern Europe, and contributing to the Bronze Agecollapse. The Hurrians were a Bronze Age people of northern Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia. While some composers’ names are known, this hymn is anonymous, and its transcription remains controversial: there are at least five rival decipherments, each yielding entirely different results. The Hurrian lyrics are at the top of the tablet; below is the Akkadian (Mesopotamian) notation for a song accompanied by a nine-string sammûm, a type of lyre, or harp (other tablets contain instructions for tuning the harp). The text is difficult to grasp, since the Hurrian language is not well understood; in addition, it seems it is a local Ugaritic dialect, differing significantly from other known dialects. • There is a striking resemblance of the most credible rendering of the hymn’s melody to the emblematic Portuguese song Acordai! (Wake Up!), composed by Fernando Lopes-Graça before the tablet was found. Although the Akkadian notation refers to a heptatonicdiatonic scale, there have been alternative variations in the chromaticgenus. Lullabying Children, Waking Up Adults brings to the fore this resemblance to Acordai!, while Mágissa Thálassa combines a) the diatonic and chromatic genera, and b) the most credible interpretation with a disputed decipherment used as an instrumental introduction and bridge. • Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906 – 1994): a Portuguese composer, conductor and musicologist, influenced by his homeland’s popular music. He was a member of the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) and a strenuous opponent of the Salazar dictatorship. • José Gomes Ferreira (1900 – 1985): a Portuguese poet and fiction writer, who was also an activist against the dictatorship, becoming a member of the PCP.

The clay tablet with the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal, the oldest surviving substantially complete
work of notated music in the world found in Ugarit (14th – 13th centuries BCE)

Every time I turn / and see the sea,
tears start falling down,
I’ve been unfit to tame the waves.

Odysseus Aylan, / Ithaca was everything.
Yet the voyage of your life / ended too soon.
I see your image everywhere / but you are elsewhere.
Starting off to go to Europe, / you forgot Penelope,
the caresses of your mother / drowned as well.
Time was frozen stiff and still / on the seabed fell asleep.
A Poseidon’s idea, / Odysseus…

When I see the sea / tears start falling down.
Sorceress. / When I see the sea…

Every time I turn / and see the sea,
I keep asking her / where’s this little kid
I’ve lost so I may find / and see him in his grave?

Poseidon holding a trident: from a Corinthian Sanctuary of the sea god.

• Odysseus and Penelope: see ARCHiPELAGOS • VII. ISLANDS OF IMAGINATION • Aylan: Alan Kurdî (initially reported as Aylan, 2012 or 2013 – 2015) was a three-year-old Syrian Kurd whose image made global headlines after he drowned on September 2, 2015 in the Aegean between Bodrum (ancient Halicarnassus) and the island of Kos. He and his family were refugees trying to reach Europe. • Poseidon: one of the twelve Olympians in the Greek pantheon. His domain was the ocean, and he was called the God of the Sea. In the Odyssey, he is notable for his hatred of Odysseus who blinded the god’s son, the cyclopPolyphemus. This prevented Odysseus’ nostos for many years. • Sirens (Σειρῆνες): mythological daemons combining women’s heads and body of birds, and related to water, love and death; they lured sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island.

● Hellenes in Portugal ● Moera-Fate and Fado ● Odysseus and Calypso in Lisbon; Their Son in Santarém ● Creto-Iberian Ties: Bull Leaping and Fights

The caption read: “Mosaic of a Phoenician trading ship”(!) Almost every word is a lie: the ship is neither Phoenician, nor trading; and underneath we can read in BIG, Hellenic letters: ODYSSEY… (Inopportune comments of someone unable to read Greek)

“IN REMOTE TIMES, even prior to the 6th century BC, the Greeks colonised what is now Portuguese territory, exploiting mines, founding and fortifying towns, especially along the coast and in the basins of the larger rivers.”

We have started with a passage from Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto’s book Fado / Origens Líricas e Motivação Poética (Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation). It is one of his initial remarks in the first chapter (Identity and Origins), just after the preliminaries about fado: Portugal’s urban folk song was born in two of its oldest cities, Lisbon and Coimbra (with a distinct form in each); it’s Provençal in origin with Arabic melodic and poetic influence; it’s a way of life (like rebetiko, flamenco, blues, tango, and any other authentic folk mode of expression however “humble” or “marginal” it is considered in origin); it’s dominated by nostalgia, by saudade, a keyword in fado also coming from the Arabs, and found corrupted elsewhere, as well: it is Cape Verde’s sodade characterizing its nostalgic song, morna.

The Hellenes, says Mascarenhas Barreto, “mingled with the aboriginal inhabitants and with the Iberians, who inherited from them certain ethnic and cultural characteristics. It is presumed that the Iberians were a people originating in the East of Europe. Iberus was the ancient name of the River Ebro, in Spain.”

Among the cultural characteristics that the Greeks bequeathed to Iberia (the Iberian Peninsula), Barreto points out Moera:

“The Hellenic Moira is to be found in the spirit of Fado… The word fado, derived from the Latinfatum, means fate, destiny – what has been foretold by the Oracle and which nothing can alter… Later, Moira became allied to Arab Fatalism.”

“The Hellenic Moira is to be found in the spirit of Fado”.
(Mascarenhas Barretο)

You see then that foreigners attribute to the Greeks cultural characteristics that the latter claim they are due to 400 years of (Ottoman) yoke…

Much more impressive is what Portuguese mythology says about the Iberian adventures of that “man of many ways”, “man for wisdom”, “of many wiles”, “of many turns”, “of twists and turns”, “of much resource”, the “skilled”, “ingenious” and “very resourceful” man,(a)Odysseus (see also Chronicle 6: Iberian “El Dorado”):

“Legend”, Barreto says, “attributes the building of the ancient walls of the city [of Lisbon] to the great Greek hero of antiquity, Ulysses, king of Ithaca and conqueror of Troy, who is supposed to have given the place the name of Ulissea – whence the word Ulissipo.(b) Anyway, what is certain is that Lisbon was inhabited by the Phoenicians about 600 BC, and they named it Alis Ubbo, meaning ‘Calm Bay’.(c) It was certainly visited by Greeks and Carthaginians, who established trade relations with the primitive peoples inhabiting the country.(d) These tribes, who had mingled with the Celts and the Iberians, formed an ethnic sub-group: the Celtiberians.

“Legend attributes the building of the ancient walls of Lisbon
to the great Greek hero of antiquity, Ulysses [Odysseus]” (Barretο)

(b)Ulissea, i.e. Odyssey, from the Latin version of the hero’s name, Ulysses or Ulisses, hence Ulissípolis (Odysseupolis) > Ulissipo or Olisipo.

The “Snake God” found in Tavira – the only Portuguese town, next to Huelva, where the Phoenicians actually settled

(c) Ulysses’ Ulissipo is a “legend”, according to Barreto, but the Phoenicians’ Alis Ubbo is a “certainty”: it’s the “classical” historical… science fiction. How can he combine this conclusion with his starting point that “in remote times, even prior to the 6th century BC, the Greeks colonised what is now Portuguese territory”? Well, “what is certain is that”… if we are based on facts, neither the Hellenes, nor the Phoenicians or the Punics ever settled in Portugal. The latter could not compare with Andalusia that magnetized all the above due to its mineral wealth and strategic importance. The only area of Portuguese interest that drew their attention was the also mineral-rich Galicia (by the way, I mean, of course, Galicia of Iberia and not that of Eastern Europe)!

(d) Alis (or Allis) Ubbo (or Ubo) is generally interpreted also as “Safe” (or “Pleasant”, “Enchanting”, “Serene”, “Delightful”) “Harbour” (or “Port”, “Haven”, “Gulf”, “Cove”, “Shore” “Inlet”): all versions describe a good anchorage and, therefore, all have something to do with the sea. In an article about the Mycenaean presence in Sardinia, Demetris Michalopoulos wrote, inter alia:

“In ancient times, Cagliari, the current capital of Sardinia, was called Caralis. In all likelihood, the place name derives from the Semitic word car, which means ‘white rock’”.

We assume that Caralis meant Bay (or Harbour, etc.) with a white rock, a toponym the omnipresent Phoenicians must have given. Can we associate the Semitic alis with the Indo-European root sal– (e.g. the English salt, and the Greek ἅλς (hals), meaning both salt and sea)? If so, Indo-European and Semitic languages should have had some common ground – at least on matters of common interest like navigation: this common ground was possibly formed by loan words from Mediterranean languages such as MinoanCretan…

“During the Punic Wars – between Rome and Carthage – the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Romans and, in 205 BC the town – then called Olissipo – was raised to the category of a Roman municipium. In 100 AD it was named Felicitas Julia, in honour of Julius Caesar, and the name was a promise of good fortune. In the year 376, the Visigoths invaded the peninsula. In 404 the territory was still occupied by Romans and barbarians, but in 522, after the departure of the Romans, a single Visigoth kingdom was formed, and the town came to be known as Olissipona. In 711 the Arabs invaded the peninsula from North Africa and occupied the town, to which they gave the name Lissibona… In 1147 Lisbon was re-conquered by Dom Afonso Henriques.”

Olissipo-Lisboa with the port on the Tagus in the 16th century

That’s how we “arrived” to Lisboa, the current capital of Portugal. But this is not the end of Barreto’s story. There’s more to it:

“Santarém, [which] stands looking over the River Tagus… is believed to have been founded in the 10th century BC by Abidis [Habis], of Greek origin, who gave it the name of Esca-Abidis. This prince, grandson of Gregoris [Gárgoris], king of the Iberian Peninsula, is also said to have founded the town of Astorga (Astigi) in Spain. According to legend, he was also the son of Ulysses: betraying the trust of Gregoris after having been given Alis-Ubbo (Lisbon), Ulysses secretly espoused Calypso, daughter of the peninsular king, who rushed with his army on Lisbon. Ulysses fled by sea, abandoning his spouse”…

“Santarém is believed to have been founded in the 10th century BC
by Abidis [Habis], son of Ulysses and Calypso”. (Barretο)

Consequently, Calypso was not a nymph on the Isle of Ogygia, as Homer says. Deviating from the greatest of the rhapsodes, the Lusitanians adopted Calypso as a princess of Iberia and daughter of Gregoris/Gárgoris, not Atlas. Note that we remain in the same places that Heracles had toured earlier for the golden apples of the Hesperides and Geryon’s cattle. It is assumed that Ogygia must have been nearby the Pillars of Heracles, since Odysseus had to travel for 18 days in an easterly direction to reach Scheria, the Phaeacian island, which many identify with Corfu. There’s a chance that Ogygia was one of the Pillars, today’s Spanish Ceuta on Moroccan soil, opposite the other Pillar, the Rock of Gibraltar. Although it’s not an island now, it may have been still an island in the days of Homer.

According to Hesiod, the conqueror of Troy – and also of numerous… women (for he was so “skilled”, “ingenious” and “resourceful”) – had in total 16 sons and a daughter from six women. In this long list, however, no child called Abidis, Habis, or something similar, is included. Odysseus had three sons from Penelope, one from the daughter of Thoas the Aetolian, eight sons and a daughter from Circe, two sons from Calypso, one from Callidice, the queen of Thesprotia, whom he later married, and another from Euippe, daughter of Tyrimmas, king of Dodona in Epirus. Note that if we accept Hesiod’s genealogy of Odysseus, with nine children from Circe and two from Calypso, we must reverse the time that, according to Homer, he lived with the two nymphs (one year with Circe and seven with Calypso).

With such a “proliferation”, of course, Odysseus was in danger to fall by the hand of… some offspring of his – something that did happen in the sequel of the Odyssey, in the Telegony or Thesprotis, the Epic Cycle’s final episode, attributed to Eugammon of Cyrene or Cinaethon of Sparta. Circe’s son, Telegonus, so the story goes, while searching for his father, landed on Ithaca where – according to the favourite custom of the era – started plundering and slaughtering, among others, also his genitor. Realizing he had become a patricide, he was overwhelmed with remorse, collected Odysseus’ body and, accompanied by his half-brother, Telemachus, and Penelope, voyaged back to the island of his mother, who turned them immortal. The “saga” ends there with a happy end worthy of… a Greek film of the ’60s: with the marriages of Circe with Telemachus and Penelope with Telegonus! Finally, only poor Odysseus was enveloped by murky darkness!

A similar end awaits our hero in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, as well. The father of Italian poetry presents a traditional variation of the Homeric version, in which Odysseus himself says that he never returned to Ithaca. From Circe’s island, Aea, Aeaea or Aeaeë,(e) he went through the Pillars of Heracles into the Atlantic, crossed the Equator, sailing in the southern hemisphere for five months, until he reached a very high mountain. Then a tornado had the ship spin three times and sink. They all drowned there. But where? Was it in the “underworld”, or the in “new world”, America? Logic, based on today’s knowledge about the world, makes us draw wrong conclusions. Moreover, the narrative takes place in Dante’s Inferno (see also Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!).

(e) Here we have another homonymous toponym with the capital of Colchis, Aea (today’s Kutaisi). But in this case there’s an explanation: Circe was the sister of Aeëtes, the king of Colchis, and aunt of Medea, with whom she shared magic powers – and also temperament: Some say Circe was exiled to the solitary island of Aeaea by her subjects and her father for killing her husband…

Statue of Viriato in Zamora: The greatest Lusitanian hero in the resistance against the Romans was killed with treachery. When his assassins asked the Romans for their payment, the latter answered: “Rome does not pay
traitors who kill their chief!”

The Lusitanians, however, didn’t bother to… “set out for Ithaca” with Cavafy, nor cared about Odysseus after he escaped leaving Calypso behind. Naturally, they were concerned about what was going on “at home” and thus they paid much more attention to Abidis/Habis:

“When Abidis was born, Gregoris ordered him to be thrown in a cave to be devoured by wild beasts. In answer, however, to the entreaties of his daughter, he consented that the child should be delivered to Fate, according to primitive custom, and the boy was put in a basket and taken away by the current of the river [Tagus].(f) A hind adopted him and when the child was later found in a wild state by some huntsmen, his mother recognised him by a mark. Gregoris forgot his former anger and gave him schooling, so that he could succeed him in the government of the peninsula. The name Esca-Abidis (Escalabis) in Greek means ‘food of Abidis’,(g) in memory of the place where he was reared by the hind.

“As regards history, the Romans rebuilt the town in 153 AD and called it Scalabis-castrum. Julius Caesar raised it to the status of a capital – one of the four in Lusitania… In the year 500 when the Visigoths came to Lusitania, the barbarians and Lusitanians formed in that region a single people. In 632 the town of Tomar was the scene of the martyrdom of Irene… a nun. Her body, thrown into the river, was carried down as far as Scalabis… Nineteen years later, King Recceswinth, who was Catholic,(h) changed the name of Scalabis to Santa Irene. When… the Arabs occupied the town (715), they called it Chantireyn” – and that’s how we “arrived” to Santarém.

(h) Force of habit: “Catholic” is what Barreto wrote, instead of “Christian”, as he should, because the Schism was still to come…

The Graeco-Iberian ties date back to much earlier times than the Trojan War, to the Minoan thalassocracy in the Mediterranean. A common cultural characteristic of Cretans and Iberians was bull worship: bull-leaping.

Taurocathapsia (bull-leaping), Minoan fresco

In his Memoriae Historicae,Strabo, geographer and historian of the Roman era, who was born in Amaseia of Pontus (64-63 BCE) and died probably in Rome (24 CE), referred to the Lusitanian equestrian bullfight (…“the peoples of the coastline, who are fond of meeting, on horseback, the fierce Hispanian bulls”, he wrote).(i)

(i) The ancestor of the Iberian bull, aurochs, was described by Julius Caesar as “somewhat smaller than an elephant, swift and powerful; attacks both men and animals.”Charlemagne hunted a similar animal, known as bubalo. It is likely that the savage creature killed by St George was an aurochs and not a dragon as the plastic artists present him. The aurochs (aur = wild + ochs = ox), or urus, is the bos primogenius which is now extinct. It survived until 1627 in a forest of Poland.

Apart from bullfighting on horseback, there was also the pega – from the verb pegar, which means catch, seize… the bull by the horns! In one kind of pegas, the so-called forcado was not only completely unarmed, but had nothing to fool the attacking bull (e.g. cape). He should withstand the initial impact (the tremendous weight of the animal plus speed), and also the subsequent shaking of the bull’s head so as to get rid of an unwelcome rider on his neck.

There were more forcados, usually eight, as assistants in the pega to master the bull. It is the picture we have from the Minoan bull-leaping in an extant fresco of Taurocathapsia dating from the 15th century BCE. Isn’t it impressive? Even more if we take into account that these Cretan “forcados” included women!

Arriving at the other side of the Mediterranean, we find the earliest known description of such a bullfight in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the legendary hero of Mesopotamia, whose name became associated with his futile struggle to obtain immortality. The epic, dating back to ca 2100 BCE, describes how the hero and his companion Enkidu kill the Celestial Bull that the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances: “Enkidu seizes the celestial bull by the horns” while Gilgamesh “approaches it slowly and jumps on its back; then grabs it by the tail”…

“The pegas”, Barreto concludes, “probably originated in the Neolithic ritual hunts. We may wonder whether the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula learnt this from the Cretans of the 3rd millennium BC, or if they themselves may have been the teachers, since the bulls were taken from their natural habitat in the peninsula to the island of Crete.”

But when you talk about so extensive exchange going on five millennia ago – whether it is bull-leaping or bull shipments from Iberia to Crete – how is it possible to be concerned about trivial “problems” as to who were the initiators of this practice?